


Anything but Ordinary

by mintamortentia



Category: Original Work
Genre: Magic, Multi, Original Fiction, Teen Angst, Teenage Drama, Wizards
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-22 12:03:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16597544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintamortentia/pseuds/mintamortentia
Summary: Strange things have been happening to Imogen ever since she was a little kid. It's only once she discovers the true extent of her power that the world around her changes completely.





	Anything but Ordinary

These days, it’s getting a lot more difficult to follow my dear old grandfather’s advice. I was five years old, sitting on my grandparents overstuffed couch in their living room, in their old weatherboard house on the outskirts of Sydney. I was watching another rerun of one of my Nanna’s favourite soap operas. I never understood what was happening in them, but it made Nanna happy to sit with her only granddaughter and spend what she used to say was “quality time together”. But my Nanna did not sound happy now. Her voice was muffled as her and my Pop argued in their bedroom with the door closed, but I still managed to hear some choice words. Words definitely not meant to be heard by a child who could hardly grasp the word remote without jumbling up the letters.

My Pop emerged from the room and slammed the door behind him. The sudden explosion of noise made me jump. Pop quickly apologised and ran a hand through his grey and thinning hair, looking more flustered than I’d ever seen him. The knot of worry in my stomach began to grow. The fear must’ve been plastered across my face, because Pop made his way over to the couch and sat down next to me. He placed his hand on my knee and flashed a reassuring smile at me. I asked if everything was okay with him and Nanna, he told me I had nothing to worry about, that people who had been together for a long time sometimes argued over silly things.

It was then that he gave me the piece of advice that plagued my mind for years. “If there’s one thing you need to learn early Imogen, it’s to keep your head down and not draw too much attention to yourself. People like to nit-pick and will try to start arguments over anything, which can lead to the kind of scene you just heard. Try not to cause any trouble, and you can sail through a pleasantly uneventful life”. I don’t think he expected his young granddaughter to actually take anything he said seriously, he was just venting his frustrations in the most civil way he could think of.

Shortly after, my Nanna appeared from the bedroom, visibly trying to calm herself down. She plastered a smile on her face and suggested we all had some lunch. She was clearly just trying to breeze over their argument and distract me long enough to forget about it so I wouldn’t tell my Mum and Dad they’d let things get out of hand while they were babysitting me. I went along with it, but my mind was stewing over the advice Pop had given me. “Try not to cause any trouble and you can sail through a pleasantly uneventful life”.

That hadn’t sounded pleasant to me at all, it sounded awfully boring. The words ran through my head over and over again, blending into one big noiseless blur. Then the words weren’t just in my head, they begin to messily etch themselves into the walls of my grandparent’s dining room as I chewed on my ham and cheese sandwich. Cutting through the old fashioned floral wallpaper, which was yellowing with age. Within moments all the walls were covered in the same message, “try not to cause any trouble”, “pleasantly uneventful life”. I wasn’t even completely sure of what my Pop was trying to tell me, but the words plagued me nonetheless.

My grandparents seemed unbothered by the words taking over their home, which confused me. I was snapped out of my own thoughts by my Nanna expressing her concern at my vacant stare around the room. I shook my head, sending messy brown curls flying around my face as I tried to clear the words from my mind. When my eyes refocused around the room the walls were normal again, still covered in the same yellowing wallpaper with no visible tears, other than the ones around the edges from wear. I smiled quickly, my mouth full of bread, ham and cheese, to calm my Nanna’s worry. That was the first time I made something strange and seemingly impossible happen, but certainly not the last.

I tried to follow what my Pop told me, I suppressed my need to start trouble, hoping that if I did I wouldn’t make anything else weird and unexplainable happen. It was difficult at first, especially at school when other kids annoyed me and made me want to argue with them. But eventually I got into a rhythm, I learnt to calm myself down and resist the mischievous urge inside me. I was able to blend in with everyone around me and not draw attention to myself.

 At the beginning of high school I became part of the typical cliché. One of the popular girls. But I quickly realised if I truly wanted to blend in with them, I had to look like them. My Mum was reluctant at first but I soon persuaded her to let me start wearing makeup to school and fake tanning my skin. Even though Mum was opposed to it, she even took me to the hairdressers to get my hair dyed blonde, and I straightened it every day. It meant everything for me to fit the image I had created in my head to make me blend in. I dressed like other girls, I talked like the other girls, and I twirled my hair around my fingers and giggled when boys talked to me like the other girls.

Soon enough I had been faking it long enough that it felt real. This person I had created to try and blend in had felt like who I really was, and I had made nothing strange happen for years.

I continued faking it even after my Pop had gotten sick and eventually passed away. His words hadn’t echoed through my mind for at least five years. But I had been pretending for so long that I hadn’t even realised I was anymore.

But I became bored, I was entering my second last year of high school and I hadn’t started any trouble. I was just showing up, going to classes, talking with my friends and then going home. There was no spark to my everyday life. A couple of days into the first term of the new school year, my friends and I were sat sweltering in the heat of the of the Australian February sun, when I got an idea. I was bored out of my mind, and I had long forgotten words of wisdom from my Pop. I wanted to start some trouble.

I thought about the amount of rumours I heard floating around the school on a day to day basis. It might be fun to start a rumour instead of just hearing about them. I looked around the courtyard to try and pick my victim, who would cause a scene that would be interesting to watch? I look to my friend Lia, talking animatedly with Amy, another girl who was a part of our group, but I wasn’t overly fond of. That could be interesting, Lia is too dramatic in nature to not flip out over a rumour, and Amy is, disposable. A devilish grin overtook my features, but I concealed it as quickly as possible to not give myself or my intentions away.

The shrill of the bell signalling it was time to go to our next class broke me from my scheming thoughts, and I quickly took action as I saw Lia gathering her things to head to class and walking away from the group, waving to everyone with a grin as she set off for class. I quickly picked up my bag and swung it over my shoulder, breaking into a jog to catch up with her, holding down my plaid school skirt as I ran. “Lia!” I called out, she swiftly turned to face me as I stepped towards her. Now to put my plan into action.

“What’s up Imogen?” she inquired. “Well I heard something the other day, and it’s kind of been bothering me”, I stumble over my words slightly to show my mock concern and make Lia more curious, she easily takes the bait, “I just thought that I should tell you”, I let out a sigh. “Tell me what?” I can see the worry in her eyes, it spurs me on. “That Amy has kind of been saying some awful stuff about you behind your back”. I smile inwardly as the shock encompasses her face, her eyes go wide and her jaw drops.

She attempts to compose herself and her jaw is set, hard and clearly angry. “What kind of stuff?” She spits the question like venom, I continue to act concerned and weary. “This is just what I’ve heard”, I quickly add so she doesn’t become suspicious that I’ve been a part of the fake gossip session, “But apparently she said that you’re boring and whiny and… well I’ll just say, promiscuous”. She audibly gasps at the last part and I can tell she’s fallen for it. “Thanks Imogen”, she growls through gritted teeth, “I’ll deal with her after class”. Something about the way she turns and storms off to her classroom makes me know I do not want to miss the confrontation that will take place later on today.

I could barely contain my excitement about what was to come at the conclusion of my history class that day. I felt a rush of triumph as I thought about my meddling. It felt so good to finally start some trouble.

As soon as the bell rang once again to signal the end of class and of the school day, I hurriedly packed away my books into my bag and raced off in search of Lia and Amy to see how their confrontation would go down. I hear yelling from around the corner of the tall brick building I’m standing by and know I’ve found the right place. I poke my head around the corner to double check and see Lia, red faced and eyes blazing with fury, screaming at a bewildered looking Amy. Her confusion is understandable considering the whole argument is based off lies I’ve fed Lia.

I know I should feel bad watching as Amy’s eyes begin to fill with tears and a crowd gathers to see the fight that’s broken out. But to be completely honest it fills me with a feeling I can only describe as elation. Amy’s hands fly up to her face and she pushes through the crowd to run off. I knew it would be entertaining to pick Amy as the face of my rumour, she hates confrontation.

As Lia is left alone the crowd around her starts to leave, all looking disappointed that the fight didn’t amount to much. She’s still fuming, probably dissatisfied that Amy ran off before she could really tear in to her. To be honest that annoyed me slightly as well, I thought she’d be able to withstand Lia’s anger a little longer than that. That would’ve created a more interesting spectacle for me to watch, what would’ve been ideal is if Amy actually started crying and trying to fight back.

I shrug, and leave the scene behind to begin my walk home. That wasn’t bad for a first attempt at starting some drama. Like everything else, this will take practice. This probably isn’t what my Mum meant when she told me she would like me to be more committed to school, but it works for me. During my walk home, I try to come up with a more juicy rumour and think of who my next victims should be. I think that’ll it’ll probably work best if I pick some people from outside of my own friend group, then none of them will get suspicious of me. That means for the next couple of days at school I’ll have to start paying attention to people other than my select group of friends. That part won’t be much fun, I’ve never been awfully fond of paying attention to what other people are saying.

Hopefully it’ll all be worth it if I get to have a little bit of fun.

I pull my house key out of the front pocket of my school bag and slide the key into the lock. The heavy wooden door shuts behind me and I make my way to my bedroom to ditch my school stuff. “Mum I’m home!” I call out, Mum comes out from the lounge room to start the usual post school conversation. I never normally know what to say when she asks me if anything interesting happened at school that day, normally I just shrug and tell her “Same old, nothing too interesting”, but today was different.

“Well, Lia and Amy had this huge fight after fifth period as everyone was leaving class to go home”, Mum’s jaw practically drops to the floor. “What was it about?” she asks with concern lacing her voice, classic Mother move. “Apparently Lia found out Amy had been saying some stuff behind her back. The fight didn’t last very long though, Lia screamed at her for a while and she started crying and ran away”. It was hard not to laugh as I said the last part, but I couldn’t have Mum thinking I was the kind of person that laughed when other people got hurt, even if that was true. “Well that’s horrible”, Mum replied, “I hope they’re both okay”. I get up to leave at this point, scared I’ll expose myself if this conversation lasts any longer. I quickly shrug it off with a “Yeah I hope so too”, and continue making my way to my bedroom.

Once I know I’m out of Mum’s earshot, I have to let out the laugh I was holding in earlier, “It was actually kind of hilarious”, I murmur to myself.

I walk into my bedroom and shut the door behind me, throwing my bag onto the floor beside my desk. My bag is full of homework that I should probably be doing, but my mind is otherwise occupied, besides it’s not like the schoolwork you do in the eleventh grade really matters anyway.

I flop onto my bed and lie there on my back, just staring at the ceiling, a wide smile begins to take over my face as I remember how it felt to start some trouble today. All these years keeping my head down and keeping to myself, never involving myself in gossip or rumours, for what? I realised now how utterly bored I’ve been for years. I just figured I was a boring type of person, turns out I’ve just been living my life wrong. Today I felt, elated, more complete even. It sounds outrageous but making up the rumours filled me with a kind of adrenaline I’ve never felt before, I want to feel like that again.

I feel my phone vibrate from my pocket and reach down to pull it out, glancing at the screen I see that it’s Lia calling, this should be interesting. “Hey Lia, what’s up?” I’m lucky she can’t see me as I can’t control my smirk. “Not much I just needed someone to talk to about this whole thing that went down with Amy today”, just as I expected, “I feel kind of bad about the way I reacted, I should’ve just asked her about it before going off the way I did, I guess I’m just embarrassed”. I can’t let Lia give this up so easily, guess I just need to fuel the fire a little bit more. “I don’t think you have anything to be embarrassed about Lia, of course you were mad, Amy was your friend, my friend too, and she just went behind your back like that? I would’ve lashed out too”, ironic that I’m telling her all this, considering I’m actually the friend that went behind her back.

Lia keeps venting about the Amy situation and I keep listening, responding when necessary to make sure she stays mad, I need to see the way this plays out at school tomorrow. When Lia hangs up I go back to staring at the same point on the ceiling I was staring at before she called me. I start thinking again. Thinking about how if anyone knew about the adrenaline rush I get from lying and going behind my supposed best friend’s back, they’d think I’m psychotic. That’s why no one else can know about what goes through my head. These plans to make rumours and break friendships within my school, they’re private, just for my own entertainment.

A couple of hours of pointless internet scrolling later, Mum calls me from my room for dinner. I sit with her and Dad at the dining table, trying not to roll my eyes at their mundane conversations about how their days were. The most exciting tale told over dinner that night was about how Mum’s work friend had started a new spin class at the local gym, and was trying to convince Mum to join too. The conversation become too dull for me to handle, so I quickly finished off my dinner and excused myself. As I went to leave, Dad asked me if I would do the dishes that night, I couldn’t think of anything more boring, one of them could surely do it, “Can’t sorry Dad, too much homework tonight”. That satisfied them enough, my parents both smile as I left the room, proud of how committed their only child was to her schooling. Later that night, my homework is left incomplete, still in my school bag.

I wake before my alarm the next morning, my excitement building. I get ready for school feeling especially chirpy, ready to see the drama that awaits me unfold. I walk into the schoolyard and spot my group of friends, in the same place we meet every morning. I notice that the group is one person short. As I get closer, I see all the girls staring in disgust in the same direction. I redirect my glance to the same place, and I’m not disappointed, I see Amy, sat on her own on the other side of the courtyard, she looks dejected.

This is exactly the kind of outcome I was hoping for, I don’t think I could ever go back to how boring my days were before. This is far too much fun.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading the first chapter of my first original work! If you enjoyed it please leave kudos and any feedback in the comments :) (Also title is a WOP as I am terrible at naming things)


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